PREVIEW: Adelaide Adrenaline at Newcastle North Stars

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After a difficult home loss against the defending Goodall Cup champions, the Melbourne Mustangs, the Adelaide Adrenaline embark on their penultimate road-trip of the season, travelling to Newcastle to face the North Stars.
The North Stars, who sit second on the ladder, have only lost two games this season and present a tough assignment for the visiting Adrenaline, a side determined to separate themselves from the logjam in the middle of the table.

Adrenaline Coach, Ryan O’Handley acknowledges the team needs to be better defensively against a North Stars side led by the league’s two top scorers in Luke Moffat and Geordie Wudrick.

“We’ve got to clean up the front of the net, we’ve got to be better there,” O’Handley said.

He also emanated an air of anticipation, expecting the speedy Adrenaline side to flourish on the larger Newcastle ice surface.

“We’ve got good speed, it’s going to be a real challenge to play against that club but I want to see us on the bigger ice surface where we can use our speed a bit more and I’m excited to go over there and give them a really good game,” O’Handley said.

Much of the focus will be on the new look Adrenaline defense, who last weekend added Canadian import Kory Helowka and welcomed back star defenseman, Josh Harding from injury but struggled as a unit against the Mustangs.

Harding, who played his first game for the season on Sunday acknowledges the changes to the defensive core presents challenges but expects they can be overcome quickly.

“For sure (it will take time to adapt), a new guy like Kory coming in… he’s still finding his legs but a couple of practices under our belts and I think we’ll be good to go [this weekend] for sure,” Harding said.

The unit will need to be at their best against the North Stars, who along with possessing the league’s top two scorers, also have a league best goal differential and goals for.

While a tough test awaits the visitors, the game will serve as a good barometer for the Adrenaline who have eyes to challenge for the Goodall Cup and must show they can match it with the league’s best on all ice surfaces.

The Adrenaline and the North Stars face-off this Saturday at 5PM local time at the Hunter Ice Skating Stadium in Newcastle.